The Secret Pundit7 Apr, 2014

Romelu still on the rampage

Romelu Lukaku – the striker that Chelsea are craving, so everyone says. Which begs the question: why have they allowed him to play on loan with Everton? It just bemuses me.

For now, Lukaku is at Goodison Park. And the Belgium forward was the main reason Everton brushed aside Arsenal 3-0 yesterday afternoon and have a top-four place firmly in their sights.

Everton were too much for Arsenal to handle. Lukaku was always influential, drifting out on the wide right throughout the whole match due to the early injury to Leon Osman, with Ross Barkley moving to the centre-forward role.

It’s clear that sending the striker out on loan was a mistake

Lukaku’s movement terrorised the Arsenal defence. For his goal, the ball was swept out to him on the right, he then created space for himself, skipped past defenders and made his way towards the penalty area before unleashing a powerful shot into the far right corner.

It was his 14th goal of the season, he is enjoying life on Merseyside and the good relationship he has with manager Roberto Martinez is evident – Lukaku went straight to Martinez after scoring.

It was a touching moment – and encapsulates Everton’s season thus far – although the big, powerful Belgian almost dragged his manager to the floor as he celebrated!

As every week goes by, Jose Mourinho’s decision to send out Lukaku on loan becomes more questionable. Chelsea are struggling with centre forwards – Fernando Torres, Samuel Eto’o and Demba Ba between them have 15 goals and Lukaku is only one short of that tally.

At the back of my mind, I think surely Mourinho and Chelsea want one of their many players out on loan to enjoy this sort of success. He is developing into a better player and the price tag is escalating if Jose really doesn’t fancy him after all.

Does Lukaku have a future at Chelsea? It’s clear that sending the striker out on loan was a mistake. So Mourinho, who we know is a proud man, must swallow his pride and take him back.

Lukaku is young, powerful and scoring a hatful of goals. Him linking up with Belgium team-mate Eden Hazard could be a partnership that would compete with the likes of “SAS” – Suarez and Sturridge at Liverpool.

For the good of Chelsea, Mourinho should admit that he made an error and bring him back. But will he?

MISS

Cardiff City. The Welsh side got thumped 3-0 at home by Crystal Palace. Just not good enough for a club who are fighting to remain in the Premier League.

From the three teams at the bottom, I believed Cardiff were the better equipped to get out of it. Evidently, that doesn’t seem the case. Fulham have now overtaken them after their impressive 2-1 victory at Aston Villa.

Cardiff are now six points from safety, with only five matches remaining. This had been the fixture that they had targeted to win, with Palace not exactly a million miles away. But now there is an eight-point gap between them.

Cardiff are struggling for goals. They can’t keep relying on centre back Steven Caulker

Credit to Palace boss Tony Pulis. His team are pretty much safe. Of course, the same cannot be said for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side.

Cardiff are struggling for goals. They can’t keep relying on centre back Steven Caulker to keep putting the ball in the back of the net, can they? And loan signing Wilfried Zaha and Kenwyne Jones haven’t had the impact that the fans would have hoped.

And I’m sure, somewhere, there is a certain Malkay Mackay with half a smile on his face.

SIDELINE

England’s new kit. Last week, England’s new kit for the upcoming World Cup finals was unveiled. As you know, the manufacturer is Nike. But there was outrage among fans after finding out the shirt costs £90. Absolutely scandalous.

There is an alternative if England supporters want to a save some money. There is the replica, which costs £60. So essentially, there is a tiered system in which the manufacturers are squeezing out as much money as possible from the supporters.

You would expect to spend that sort of price on luxurious clothing brands

At the end of the day, it’s just a white Nike top. You would expect to spend that sort of price on luxurious clothing brands, such as a Ralph Lauren top. Sorry, that’s as far as my fashion knowledge goes. But you get my point.

What’s worrying for fans is that this could be a pattern that is copied by Premier League clubs.

However, I did come across Paddy Power’s concept on Twitter. They took a plain white top and cheekily designed the England top, budget style, and gave them away to their punters for free.

Download the new TSF Mobile app! Get the latest articles, exclusive content and more – click here to download

Other comments

Lukaku requested the loan, rather than stay and fight for a place in the starting line-up. Given that attitude from the player, why wouldn’t you agree to the loan? Since then, he seems to have burnt his bridges with the club.

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <b> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike>